Linking Health With Good Sleep
Oct 26th 2021
Having adequate sleep is as important to your physical and mental health as food and water. It shouldn’t be a luxury. However, in today’s fast-paced world, a good night’s sleep has become something of an indulgence. It’s fallen down our list of priorities behind work, chores, social time, and entertainment.
Studies show that our sleep habits and sleep needs change as we age. Each person has unique sleep needs. So, how many hours should we sleep to get optimum health? For healthy individuals with normal sleep, the appropriate sleep duration for newborns is between 14 and 17 hours, infants between 12 and 15 hours, toddlers between 11 and 14 hours, preschoolers between 10 and 13 hours, and school-aged children between 9 and 11 hours. For teenagers, 8 to 10 hours was considered appropriate, 7 to 9 hours for young adults and adults, and 7 to 8 hours of sleep for older adults.1
Let’s know some significant reasons why good sleep has been linked to excellent health.
Your Brain Functions Well
Sleep is an essential functionthat allows your body and mind to recharge, leaving you refreshed and alert when you wake up. Without enough sleep, the brain cannot function properly. This can impair your abilities to concentrate, think clearly, and process memories.2-3
Maintains Good Shape and Physical Strength
Sleep helps maintain a healthy balance of the hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or full (leptin). When you don't get enough sleep, your level of ghrelin goes up and your level of leptin goes down. This makes you feel hungrier than when you're well-rested.4 Thus, Sleep deficiency increases the risk of obesity.5Another factor why sleep is needed to remain physically strong is it gives your body time to recover, conserve energy, and repair and build up the muscles worked during exercise.6
Stabilize Daytime Performance
Getting enough quality sleep at the right times helps you function well throughout the day. People who are sleep deficient are less productive at work and school. They take longer to finish tasks, have a slower reaction time, and make more mistakes. After several nights of losing sleep — even a loss of just 1–2 hours per night — your ability to function suffers as if you haven't slept at all for a day or two.
Sleep loss can make it more challenging to maintain focus, attention, and vigilance. Feeling drowsy and trying to stay awake takes a lot of mental energy, making it more difficult to stay focused on long tasks and those that require concentration. People who are sleep deprived are also more likely to make errors and omissions, partially due to increased reaction times. This means that tired employees take more time to react in critical situations and may be more likely to make a mistake.7
Improve Your Mood and Reduce Stress
Sleep is so crucial that even slight sleep deprivation or poor sleep can affect the entire mood.
One effect of stress is that it can cause sleep deprivation. A lack of sleep can cause the body to react as if it's in distress, releasing more of the stress hormone, cortisol. Cortisol is responsible for your fight or flight reaction to danger, increasing your heart rate in anticipation of a fight.9
Sleep is a powerful stress reducer. Following regular sleep, routine calms and restores the body, improves concentration, regulates mood, and sharpens judgment and decision-making. You are a better problem solver and are better able to cope with stress when you're well-rested.8
BOTTOMLINE:
Sleep is vital throughout our lives. Though the amount of sleep we need tends to remain consistent throughout adulthood, different physical and lifestyle changes may affect our sleep as we get older.
Thus, it is important to have regular exercise and a balanced and healthy diet. pHresh greens® raw alkalizing superfood is perfect for you if you want to supply your body with essential nutrients!
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REFERENCES:
1https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29073412/
2https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000871.htm
4https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/your-hunger-hormones#1
6https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31288293/
7https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656292/